“VICTORY AT MIDWAY: THE BATTLE THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF WORLD WAR II” IS PUBLISHED

On January 7, 2018, my book Victory at Midway: The Battle That Changed the Course of World War II was published by McFarland and Company Publishers with a forward for the book written Dr. William Dudley (former Director of the Naval Historical Center). The book explores a number of controversies surrounding the Battle of Midway that have existed for decades and presents a strong case that the outcome of the battle changed the course of World War II. The book is available from Amazon com: books.

There will be a book signing at Sarasota’s Book Store 1 in Sarasota, Florida on Wednesday, April 18 at 2:00 p.m.

GLENN MILLER PROJECT

The Glenn Mille Project, the objective of which is to discover Glenn Miller’s aircraft on the floor of the English Channel (average depth 490 feet) is gaining momentum as efforts have begun to raise the one million dollars needed to recover the plane. Dan Kennedy, one of the project’s members is an aviator. He has the ability to pinpoint the site where the aircraft went down even more by using known factors such as the plane’s speed, altitude and winds conditions that existed with the flight. This new tool will allow us to discover the UC- 64 Norseman plane even more quickly than we previously thought.

The project roster from SEARCH now includes:

1. James P. Delgado, PhD, Senior Vice President of SEARCH and the former Director of Maritime Heritage for NOAA. His 46 year career in archaeology has included deep and shallow water archaeological survey, documentation and excavation. He has worked off the Normandy coast on D-Day’s sites, and has deployed the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) on projects, including the one when he was Chief Scientist on the 2010 mapping expedition to Titanic.
2. Michael Arbuthnot, Vice President of SEARCH, who has extensive experience in archaeology, especially through media and film.
3. Jason Burns, head of SEARCH’s Maritime Division with decades of experience in underwater survey, diving assessment and excavation in a variety of marine environments.
4. Megan Lickliter-Mundon, aviation archaeologist with experience in underwater survey and assessment of aircraft, including work on a B-24 Tulsa American, lost in the Adriatic Sea in World War II, a crashed B-29 site off Tinian in the Marinas, Sparrowhawk aircraft loss with the Macon off the coast of California and a number of other sites. She is completing her PhD in aviation archaeology in an underwater context at Texas A & M University, and will be the only archaeologist working in the world with that level of accreditation.
5. Michael L. Brennan, PhD, SEARCH’s most experienced member and scientist for AUV and other high-technology surveys and former Director of Archaeology for Dr. Robert D. Ballard’s Ocean Exploration Trust. Dr. Brennan was expedition leader for the OET mission to locate and then recover the flight data recorders and the remains of the two pilots from two Turkish aircraft shot down by Syrian forces in the waters bordering those two countries.

More news is to follow in the next issue of the Midway newsletter.

USFWS AUTHORIZATION:

The IMMF met with Director of the USFWS, Gregory Sheehan and Aurelia Skipwith, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Department of Interior on December 5, 2017. The Director of the USFWS authorized the IMMF to seek out appropriate private sector corporations that might have an interest in operating a public visitor program on Midway and to operate and maintain the infrastructure of the Atoll for the Service. Stay tuned.

HOUSE TO INTRODUCE MIDWAY BILL SOON:

Congressman John Duncan (TN) will be introducing a House Midway bill that restructures the jurisdictional authority over Midway and places the control of the maintenance of Midway’s infrastructure and operation of its visitation program in the hands of the private sector. During the aforementioned meeting on 12/5/17, Director of FWS Gregory Sheehan indicated that he had no opposition to the bill.

MIDWAY COMMEMORATIVE STAMP UPDATE

During a meeting with Alex Schenck on December 5, 2017, we learned that Senator Dan Sullivan (AK) is still working on obtaining a signed letter from a number of Senators to be sent to the Postmaster General requesting a Battle of Midway the commemorative stamp.